Doctor in the House

The first film in the doctor series produced by Betty E Box and Ralph Thomas (brother of Carry-on co-creator Gerald Thomas), was initially a small passion project satirising the expensive, complicated and quite frankly baffling process of becoming a doctor and the medical world in general. No-one believed the movie would be a success when it was first released in March 1954, however it baffled everybody and went on to become one of the most financially successful films to ever come out of Britain, not just for the year, but the entire decade.

These were still the post-war years, when the nation was under the cloud of the awful experiences of World War II and everyday food items were still subject to the ration book. Quite simply Doctor in the House, (much  like the Norman Wisdom films and subsequent Carry-on movies), provided the country with wonderful and funny escapism, which was deeply appreciated through the hard times of British life. It was also nominated for four Baftas, including Best Film, Best British Film, Best Screenplay & Best Actor for the lead actor Kenneth More. Remarkably and quite inexplicably, despite his win, ne never returned in any of the six follow-up films.

The main plot of the film follows four doctors who have gone to study at St Swithin’s Hospital for a variety of reasons. Simon Sparrow, (Dirk Bogarde), wants to get himself into a very focused career of treating people and making them feel better, whilst struggling to balance his time between work and the dating game. Richard Grimsdyke, (Kenneth More), is a financially careless opportunist who gets given a moderate annuity for going to medical school, in order for him not to have to go out into the world and get a proper job. Each year he makes sure he just fails his medical exam. Tony Benskin, (Donald Sinden), spends most of his time outside of lectures flirting with the nurses, whilst Taffy Evans, (Donald Huston), a sports nut spends nearly all his free-time playing rugby. All four of these students share a small flat and a large chunk of the film shows them floundering through the process of becoming a doctor. In the last half-an-hour, the whole film turns into nothing more than one long jumbled tangent, lacking continuity with the previous hour, although it does ends nicely and is great fun to watch.

Although far too much comes out of the left-field for it to make any-sense, quite frankly it doesn’t really matter, considering that it’s superbly well-acted for a British comedy of the time and it does exactly what all comedy is supposed to do, it makes you laugh. Indeed, it was so popular when it came out, that the series went on to have six sequels films, a couple of which were just as good, if not better than Doctor in the House, the first in the series.

8/10 – Calum Robert